Now, these days, we tend to assume that everyone is working with the best of intentions, and that lack of representation must be a sin of omission, not commission. These days, that’s usually true, but the habits and attitude that perpetuate those omissions grew from a foundation of explicit policy. An early version of DC’s Editorial Policy Code, implemented shortly after the creation of the Comics Code Authority, leaves little room for debate: “The inclusion of females in stories is specifically discouraged. Women, when used in plot structure, should be secondary in importance.”

Indeed, with the help of Anonymous, the mask has become one of the most popular disguises and — in a small way — has added to the $28 billion in revenue Time Warner accumulated last year. It is the top-selling mask on Amazon.com, beating out masks of Batman, Harry Potter and Darth Vader.

“We sell over 100,000 of these masks a year, and it’s by far the best-selling mask that we sell,” said Howard Beige, executive vice president of Rubie’s Costume, a New York costume company that produces the mask. “In comparison, we usually only sell 5,000 or so of our other masks.” The Vendetta mask, which sells for about $6 at many retailers, is made in Mexico or China, Mr. Beige said.

According to this piece, Warner owns the image of the masks as seen in the V for Vendetta movie, which was based closely on the V comic book, drawn by David Lloyd. We’d always assumed that he based this on some kind of folk mask worn by Guy Fawkes day revelers. But guess not.

§ If you want to know whether artist Marko Djurdjevic was just kidding around a bit when he talked about his divorce from Marvel — due to editorial edicts that made him redraw covers and so on — you can listen to the audio of the panel from the Fan Expo Canada in the link above.

During the hour-long event, Djurdjevic expressed frustration with Marvel Editorial saying “I was fighting with the guys at Marvel about this. You can’t make people re-work your shit because you can’t decide what you want. Either pay or leave” amongst other comments including his opinion that J. Michael Straczynski’s writing was “like toilet paper.” While other reports of the event including one at the MTV Geek blog corroborate the quotes, several have questioned whether the tone of the panel was clearly expressed, including Hickman who tweeted “He certainly wasn’t disrespectful to me or Steve. Hell, I thought everyone was just having a good time.”

§ Of course you have seen this video of a really smart guy dressed as Spider-Man cavorting in the surf as Hurricane Irene blows around, and by seeing it you have affirmed our need for heroes in times of danger.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

Yes. Anonymous has been wearing those masks for years now. I remember when I made my own out of paper mache and a blank mask years ago. No, not for protest, but for the movie premiere. Then I see these online protest kids start wearing it. Dammit. I did it be fore it was cool! [/hipster]

I do find it funny it was somewhat indirectly related to V for Vendetta that Anonymous started using it. There was that side meme that involved the movie’s Guy Fawkes mask. It was actually this that got the Scientology protesters to wear it as a joke.